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 The year already started with expectations for the release of the second version of the single Better Alone, with a new video for the song in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The release dates of Beautiful Intentions in Poland, Spain, Portugal and France were also announced.
The second version of the single Better Alone was released on February 24th, with a more commercial video than the first one, leaving behind the Artist X Record Company original theme to adopt the more popular Boyfriend X Girlfriend one. On the video, Melanie plays a girl who almost murders her boyfriend!
Confirming rumours from last year, the Dutch singer Do really records Follow Me, song that was a b-side of the single Northern Star, in 1999. Even though Melanie C, Bryan Adams and Billie Steinberg wrote it, the cover doesn’t bring Melanie in the writing credits, and Do affirms that she got the song as a gift from Bryan. The song was released as a single and got a video in Holland.
This year, when the Spice Girls' first single, Wannabe, completes 10 years, the tabloids duplicate the number of rumours concerning the group’s comeback. Already in January, articles about a tour to celebrate the 10 years were published!
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Unfortunatelly, the single Better Alone didn't repeat First Day Of My Life’s success in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, ending up with a bad performance at the best selling single charts.
In the beginning of March, the British magazine Now publishes an article about Melanie C and Thomas Starr's break up after a 4 years relationship, based on a comment supposedly made by Melanie that she was "still looking for Mr. Right". A few days later, Melanie denies the rumour, alleging that everything was great with Thomas and that Now’s informations were false.
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Proceeding with the releases at the Iberian Peninsula, Melanie travels to Spain for signing sessions and appearances at several TV shows, with the single First Day Of My Life already at the number 1 spot. During the works over there, she took some time off to visit Victoria and David Beckham in Madrid!
Also in March, Melanie continues working hard to promote Beautiful Intentions in Switzerland, Germany and France!
Going as far as they could with the Spice Girls' comeback rumours, the tabloids publish the dates of a tour at the end of the year… The site Krystals Box Office even announces as "soon" the tickets sales for the Spice Girls concerts! The information is denied again.
In April, Melanie did a few private concerts, without previous announcements on the official website: one of those was in Poland, for the executives of the mobile company, Orange. The other one was at The Alte Oper, in Frankfurt, Germany.
In May, Melanie reveals in an interview for the Australian website, Access All Areas, that she had recorded First Day Of My Life in French, especially for the radios in France. On May 11th, the official website published the title in French: Je Suis Née Pour Toi (I Was Born To You).
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During the year, Melanie receives 4 nominations for European awards and takes two of them home: World Best Female Artist at the Eska Music Awards in Poland and Best International Pop Artist at the Radio Regenbogen Awards, in Germany.
On May 18th, TVI airs the episode of the soap opera "Dei-te Quase Tudo" recorded in March, on which Melanie co-stars, singing First Day Of My Life.
On May 19th, Melanie performed at the Stralsund Festival, in Germany, in front of an audience full of fans of the band Wir Sind Helden that were also performing at the festival. When singing right before the band, Melanie ended up being booed by the audience that even threw banana peels at the stage. A few days later, Melanie replied to a topic on the official forum, in which her fans were feeling sorry for what happened: "Hello everybody. I wanted to let you know, I had a great time in Stralsund, there were fans there waiting for Wir Sind Helden but hey that's festivals, One banana skin don't bother me, I'm tougher than that people!!!"
The re-edition of Beautiful Intentions in Portugal is released on May 22nd and it doesn’t bring a DVD with the showcase at RFM, as considerated before… only five audio tracks from the showcase appear on the CD as bonus.
The preview of Je Suis Née Pour Toi (First Day Of My Life’s French version) is finally made available on the official website, on May 23rd.
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Featuring weekly in Portuguese magazines, and with First Day Of My Life playing nonstop on the radios, Melanie goes back to Portugal to sing at two Queima Das Fitas of university students (Coimbra and Porto). She also performs at the Globos de Ouro gala. In June, Melanie goes back one more time to Portugal, to the Algarve Summer Festival.
On June 21st, Melanie performs at Place de la Bastille, in France, but she sang First Day Of My Life with only the last chorus in French. Finally on July 1st she sang the full version of Je Suis Née Pour Toi, at the NRJ Music Tour, in Monaco.
With the Spice Girls' first single, Wannabe, completing 10 years since its release on July 8th, it was speculated that the group would release a single of the song W.O.M.A.N. and get together to sing at the charity event Children in Need. None of that happened.
On July 14th, the official website was updated with the news that Melanie was already working on her 4th solo album.
Melanie performed her first gig in Poland on August 4th, at Sopot Festival. The event was broadcasted live on TV, for 2,700,000 viewers.
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Everything was calm, it seemed that the expectations from now on would be all about the new album, until August 16th, when the following news appeared on the official website: "Hi Guys. Guess what?! After many years of promising, we're finally going to do it! I'm very excited to announce my live DVD! Woo hoo! Filming will take place on Thursday 31st August 2006, at a secret location in London.
Do you want to be there? Only a limited number of tickets are available so click the VIP section above to apply for free entry for you and one guest. Please note you must be 18 or over. We will e-mail further details to the successful applicants a few days before the event.
Hope to see you there.
Love, Melanie"
One more time, the queen of the surprises announced a brand new project, to the joy of the fans.
Finally, on August 31st, the much wanted Melanie C’s Live DVD was recorded at The Bridge SE1 in London, for an audience of invited fans, who traveled from all over the world to enjoy the gig!
On September 4th and 5th, Melanie was back in Portugal, this time to perform a gig at the Coliseu do Porto and another one at the Coliseu de Lisboa, both promoted by the Portuguese company Música no Coração.
Mel did an acoustic gig to 200 people at the Hard Rock Cafe in London, on October 11th, to help Breakthrough Breast Cancer, an institution for breast cancer researches in the UK. With her gig alone, Mel raised £7,000 for the charity plus £815 with an auction on eBay of the shirt she wore during the filming of the First Day Of My Life video.
The album Beautiful Intentions is released in Japan on October 25th, distributed by Treasure Music.
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Ever since the British radio and media showed their indifference to the project of the single Better Alone in 2005, Melanie’s latest releases aimed the rest of Europe. The Live Hits DVD, filmed at The Bridge in August, was released on October 30th and re-opened the doors to Melanie’s promotion in the UK
In order to promote the DVD, Melanie went back to appear on British TV shows such as GMTV and Paul O’Grady, singing or giving interviews or even cooking, like on Something For The Weekend! She also did a signing session for the DVD with a short performance at the HMV Megastore, in London.
Melanie also appeared in the audience of the TV special An Audience With Take That and Strictly Come Dancing, a celebrity dance competition, on which Emma Bunton took part.
At the musical DVD charts in the UK, the Live Hits DVD debuted at number 10.
With the release of the DVD in other European countries, Melanie chooses Portugal as her last promotional destiny of the year. She spends one week appearing on TV and radio shows and doing signing sessions.
Two weeks later, she goes back to Portugal, this time to do a New Year’s Eve gig at Praia dos Pescadores, in Albufeira, right after the fireworks! |
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The year started with great news: on January 18th, Melanie announced through her official website that she will be releasing not one, but two new singles in March: the ballad The Moment You Believe (in Germany, Switzerland and Austria) and the cover of the song I Want Candy, originally recorded by The Strangeloves (in the UK). While The Moment You Believe would be the theme song for promotion of the German TV show "Nur die Liebe zählt", I Want Candy would be in the soundtrack of Carmen Electra's movie of the same name.
In February, Melanie appeared on the British TV show Never Mind The Buzzcocks with her new look: brown hair and a fringe!
Also in February, the music videos for both singles were recorded and Melanie announced the title of the new album: This Time, including collaborations with Adam Argyle, Peter-John Vettese and produced by Stephen Hague, Steve Mac, Guy Chambers and Richard Flack.
Emma, Victoria and Geri started to go out together, which increase the rumours of a possible reunion of the Spice Girls. Melanie had to deny the come back of the group in almost every interview while promoting This Time, what made her smash a picture of the group during a German TV show.
Once it was released, the I Want Candy video got a lot of attention on the website You Tube, charting at number 1 on the list of most viewed videos on March 4th, 2007, with more than 159,000 views in two days online!
Melanie travelled to promote the album This Time and the single The Moment You Believe in Germany where she received the platinum single for First Day Of My Life. |
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On March 20th Melanie appeared at the premiere of the movie I Want Candy in London.
With the launch of Melanie's official MySpace, the singles began to be officially promoted on the internet with a week dedicated with special avatars, wallpapers and competitions for the fans. I Want Candy was the first single to have a "I Want Candy Week" with a special competition to win the storyboard of the I Want Candy video and signed albums.
The Moment You Believe debuted at 15th position on the charts in Germany (18th in Switzerland and 43rd in Austria) and I Want Candy in 24th in the UK. The songs were released in Portugal and Spain and The Moment You Believe was part of another Portuguese soap opera: "Ilha dos Amores".
In April Melanie travelled to Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Germany and Italy to promote This Time with mini-acoustic gigs, autograph sesseions, TV interviews and a performance at the Italian MTV TRL Awards.
Also in April, Melanie was photographed with Emma, Geri and Victoria for the first time in years on Geri's daughter BlueBell's christening in London ( Mel B wasn't at the event).
Melanie announced through her official website that the next single taken from This Time would be Carolyna, co-written by her long-time guitarist Paul Gendler. |
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The Moment You Believe reached number 1 in Spain and dates for a Spanish promo trip were announced: from 25 to 28 of June...
The original b-side of the single The Moment You Believe, Fragile, co-written with the guitarist Greg Hatwell, featured in the Portuguese edition of the album This Time as bonus track and was part of the soundtrack of the Portuguese soap opera "Floribella".
In May, Melanie travelled to Ireland, Austria, Sweden, Germany and Poland to promote This Time.
With the constant appearance of Mel B, Geri, Emma and Victoria together for dinners, for David Beckham's birthday party and even leaving a recording studio, the rumours about the reunion of the group were bigger than ever and Melanie started to say in the interviews that if the girls decided to come back she wouldn't be "the person that stopped it being the complete set".
Meeting up with the Kaiser Chiefs on the backstage of the Amadeus Awards in Austria, the guys from the band asked Melanie about the Spice Girls reunion and even said to her that that was "the perfect time for a reunion". Drummer Nick Hodgson said: "So she said: 'right I'll reunite with them.' And I asked 'Are you kidding?' and she said 'No.' She thinks it (reforming) is really un-cool but she thinks we are cool for some reason! So if there is a Spice Girls reunion you can thank us for it!"
At the Breathing Life Awards in London, on May 31st, Melanie said: "I'm really happy with where I am in life and I'm fed up of all this reunion talk. But if the other girls do decide it is the way forward I don't want to miss it so we'll have to see."
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On June 6th Melanie performed a full concert on Mean Fiddler, London, and another at the Isle Of Wight Festival, both getting great reviews in the press.
While promoting This Time in UK, Ireland and Germany, Melanie started to say in the interviews that she was not anymore against a Spice Girls reunion: "For the first time ever, there is some truth in the rumours... it could happen". On June 14th, Melanie cancelled the promo trip to Spain, that would happen from 25th to 28th of June.
Melanie was one of the guest hostess of the British comedy TV show Friday Night Project and during the whole show she talked more about the Spice Girls than her solo career and even made some jokes about a reunion of the group.
Rumours about an official announcement of the Spice Girls to happen anytime soon filled the pages of tabloids all over the world. Finally, on June 22nd, when Melanie was in Oslo, Norway, to performed at the Topp 20 Festival , she announced a press conference with the five Spice Girls to be held on June 28th, in London.
The release of the single Carolyna was postponed in some countries and ended up being overshadowed by the return of the Spice Girls. Not even the "Carolyna Week" promoted on the official MySpace helped the single that debuted at number 49 in the UK charts. |
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On June 28th 2007, the Spice Girls appeared together for a press conference in London, announcing a farewell world tour, a new documentary and the release of a Greatest Hits album. The official website www.thespicegirls.com was launched and over 1.000.000 fans registered for tickets only on the first day. Melanie justified her decision to take part of the reunion at the press conference: "A girl’s allowed to change her mind. [The reunion is] something we’ve only been seriously discussing this year. The time is right. We want to have some fun and wanted to keep this announcement mysterious. We’re all very excited."
Rumours that Melanie only agreed to take part of the reunion for money made her left the following message on her official forum one day after the press conference: "DON'T BELIEVE WHAT YOU READ!!!! You should know that by now! I mean every word I say, as I always have. Everything I do I will give 100%. Money is NOT my motivation. This Time and my solo work is and will continue to be my priority. I love the girls and we truly mean when we say we want to have fun and say a proper goodbye and thankyou to our fans worldwide. It's a Spice vacation then right back to Melanie C world!! x x"
Surprising the fans of her solo career, in July 6th, Melanie announced another project: she would sing the trailer music for Pro7 Starforce campaign in Germany. She wrote the new song, We Love To Entertain You with her guitarist Greg Hatwell and flew to Salzburg in Austria to film the trailers.
Melanie continued to promote This Time in Portugal, UK and Poland and started to plan the release of another single from the album. |
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BBC's website confirmed rumours that the Spice Girls would sing the theme song for Children In Need campaign: Headlines (Friendship Never Ends).
The Spice Girls official site launched the "Spice City" competition, in which the most voted city by the fans would be included in the tour. The winning city was Toronto, Canada.
In August Melanie travelled to Poland, Belgium, Netherlands and Portugal to promote This Time. During her days in Amsterdam, she went to Hanky Panky to get a new tattoo 7 years after her latest one. She had another star, now on her left forearm, representing This Time.
Melanie announced the song This Time as the next single to be taken from the album of the same name.
Tim Royes, the director of Melanie's latest three videos, sadly died in a car accident in New York city on August 2007. In such circumstances, Melanie invited the director Adrian Moat, Royes' former colleague to create the video as a tribute to Tim.
On September 6th Luciano Pavarotti, the Italian tenor who helped bring opera to the masses and performed with the Spice Girls in 1998, died at his home in Modena after a battle with pancreatic cancer at 71 years old.
The Spice Girls started to meet at Geri's house to record interviews for the new documentary.
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In September Melanie promoted This Time at some festivals in Italy.
The world press published that the tickets for the first date of the Spice tour in London sold out in 38 seconds after being available for purchase on internet.
With only 11 dates in the beginning (Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York, London, Cologne, Madrid, Beijing, Hong Kong, Sydney, Cape Town and Buenos Aires), the tour ended up going through some modifications after high demands for tickets, so new dates were added in the UK and in the USA.
In October, Melanie was promoting This Time and the return of the Spice Girls on radios and TV channels in the UK. On Graham Norton's show, she said she was the Reluctant Spice about the reunion: "I was the last to make my decision because it was a hard decision to make as I was scared we couldn't do it again. It was a weird time of my life, I had a lot of personal s**t to get over after the Spice Girls."
Also in October, the Spice Girls recorded two commercials for the Tesco shop, both with Christmas themes and the music video for Headlines (Friendship Never Ends).
The TV adverts for the Pro7 Starforce featuring Melanie and her solo band performing We Love To Entertain You started to be broadcasted in Germany. |
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The single This Time was released on October 12th but unfortunately, the alternative version of Understand that would be a b-side was replaced with the album version due to an error at the mastering studio. By the time this error was discovered it was too late to recall the stock. So Melanie and her team decided that the right thing to do was to make the song available for free download on her official website. The single debuted at number 69 in Germany.
On October 27th, Melanie C arrived in Los Angeles to rehearse with the rest of the Spice Girls.
After the press conference, the Spice Girls only appeared together for the public again on the premiere of Headlines on BBC, November 2nd. The single Headlines (Friendship Never Ends) marked the return of the Spice Girls and had all royalties given to the BBC's charity project Children In Need.
On November 15th, all five Spice Girls performed together for the first time in 9 years at Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. On the day after, they performed again for the TV special Children In Need, singing Stop and Headlines (Friendship Never Ends).
While other countries were still hoping for new dates on the tour, tabloids published rumours about the cancellation of the Buenos Aires concert, what was denied by the girls on the official website. |
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On November 29th, Melanie announced that she would perform a solo gig at The Mint in LA on December 6th, a day off between Spice Girls shows.
After the first concert in Vancouver, on December 2nd, the Spice Girls were accused of lip-synching by the press. However, a spokesperson for the group dismissed the criticisms, saying: "All of the girls sang live. There is a click track for the band to keep them in time, which is standard, but all of the girls' vocals were live."
Melanie's acoustic solo gig at The Mint, in Los Angeles received great reviews and she said she was planning to make more solo gigs during the Spice Girls' tour. Victoria and David Beckham, Mel B and the celebs' columnist Perez Hilton attended the event.
A competition on the official site was launched in which the fans could choose the name of the plane that flies the girls during the tour, provided by Virgin Atlantic airways (the winning name was Spice One). One fan would be randomly picked to meet the girls on the ceremony of baptism of the plane (the winner was Diogo Yomane from Brazil), on December 12th.
The documentary Giving You Everything was broadcasted on Europe and Australia in December, with the girls talking about the story of the group and backstage scenes of the first concert from The Return Of The Spice Girls tour, in Vancouver.
Before starting the 2008 leg of the tour, the girls got together for a New Year's Eve party at the Claridges Hotel, in London, on December 31st.
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